


Sorority

by lollard



Category: Battlestar Galactica (2003), Firefly
Genre: Domestic Violence, F/F, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-07-15
Updated: 2008-07-15
Packaged: 2017-12-04 08:17:49
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,909
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/708562
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lollard/pseuds/lollard
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Little sisters grow up.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sorority

On her way back to Colonial One, the sight of two women on the hangar deck makes Laura Roslin pause: small, dark-haired, dark-eyed Cally Tyrol, and a woman whose name she doesn't know, but that she remembers seeing, briefly, on New Caprica. One of Cain's people. The other woman looks to be about Cally's age, maybe a little younger. She's got her coveralls pushed to her waist, with pale arms nonetheless shapely resting akimbo. Laura watches her lean in, say something low into Cally's ear, and watches Cally's face light up in delight both astonished and faintly scandalized

Laura lets Tory help her onto the Raptor; she's surprised herself by the stab of jealousy she feels. She doesn't like it, and doesn't like what it means that she can begrudge, even a little, two women their joke.

***

"I could watch Nicky," Kaylee offers, leaning back on her hands on the bed as she watches Cally dress her son. "Let you and the Chief have some time -- "

"He won't take it." _Snap_ go the buttons on her son's shirt. "Not even if I begged. And I won't do that." Cally wonders if Kaylee can hear what's going unsaid, and figures she probably can. Kaylee's too good at hearing things like that.

And Kaylee, Cally knows, is staring at her back right now, and the kindness in her voice is a little too much to bear. "You got the right to say you need your husband -- "

"Kaylee, _shut up_."

Silence.

Nicky wails. Cally buries her face in her hands.

When she looks up, it's at the noise the hatch makes when it shuts. Kaylee is gone. Cally reaches for her pills.

***

The first time Cally sees Kaylee she hates her. She's being kind to Laird, the one who's taken the Chief's job, and they look like something out of some kind of recruiting image for the Fleet -- Laird kneeling, Crewman Specialist Frye with her hand on Laird's shoulder. From what Cally can see, though, there's nothing wrong with the gimbel mounted in the vise before the two of them. Laird gives Frye a tired smile -- the only kind Cally's ever seen him give -- and Frye's response seems a little rueful, judging by the look on her face.

And maybe if the Chief wasn't in hack, with the Old Man's hands tied, Cally could find some compassion. As is, Cally keeps across the deck and doesn't slam things hard enough to break.

Nobody notices, anyway.

***

She hates Kaylee a little less when she spies her arguing with somebody wearing a captain's pips -- arguing in whispers. Cally hears the words _dead_ and _captain_ and _sister_ and _think you're better than everyone else that's lost somebody_ ; catches the name _Jane_. The point of contention, she gathers from her position next to a bulkhead, is that the captain doesn't think they ought to put up the pictures they have of their dead.

She hears Kaylee hiss, "Maybe not your sister, but the rest of 'em are just as much my dead as yours, and I _like_ knowin' there's a place I can come to lose it, since you won't let me do it around you -- "

" _Bìzuĭ_." Cally figures she misheard, and strains to hear -- until the captain stalks past her, and she can see the terrible stifled rage on his face, and when she looks back up she can see Kaylee cry.

Later, Cally comes back to look at the wall, to see who's new at this late date. The corners of the picture aren't clipped like most of the others, so it's easy enough to find -- the brownhaired man, wearing brown, with laugh lines around his eyes. Maybe he and Kaylee are -- were -- related, Cally thinks. It's not impossible. Kaylee, the little sister.

***

The story comes out on New Caprica, the day of the groundbreaking, when Galen's off talking with some of the crew that's mustered out.

"Si-- Captain Tam didn't want to come down." Kaylee's got a drink in her hands and her smile's a little crooked.

"You can use his name if you're together," Cally says, bumping Kaylee's shoulder. They're sitting side by side on what will be the bandstand, on the steps, faces turned up to the sun. Cally doesn't get a drink; she can't, and Kaylee was nothing but delighted when Cally told her why. "I won't tell."

"No." Kaylee looks down at her shoes, that same half-embarrassed smile still playing around her lips. "I know. I'm sorry. Just... it's habit. And we're..." Her shoulder rises, and falls. "I guess you could call it some kind of convenient arrangement. He don't got nobody else left. And me neither. And mad as he is..."

At Cally's questioning look, Kaylee explains: they didn't enlist. They were some of Cain's civilians, press-ganged into service. Their ship didn't have FTL. Crewman Specialist Frye and Captain Tam -- Doctor Tam -- were the only trained workers on board their ship. The rest were mercenaries.

"Civilian transport," Kaylee says, quiet and stiff, looking out at nothing. "We made a profit, but it weren't much, and we always tried not to be the bastards in the equation, so that didn't help with the money neither."

When Cain's boarding party came through, they asked for papers, and the captain wouldn't deliver. So Cain's people took down names. Jobs on the ship. And when the rest of the transport's crew started shooting, Cain's marines cut them down. Including Simon's sister. And the pilot, who wouldn't leave his wife's side.

"So Cain gave us ranks and uniforms and stuck us on the _Pegasus_ and we managed not to die until we found you." Kaylee shrugs again. "And Simon still hates all of you. Hates this place. Some days I think he hates me, for askin' him not to leave me alone, back when they pulled us off our ship. But he's gonna do his job. 'Cause that's all he's got, now. And he don't give a fig for New Caprica."

Neither of them says anything: two girl-women sitting in the sun, watching the ragtag colorful swirls of humanity go by in manic relief and stunned joy.

Cally says, "I saw you and Laird, once." Her voice sounds too loud. "When they tried to integrate the crews. And he looked -- and you looked like you knew. And with his story -- did you -- "

"Oh, yeah." Kaylee tilts her jar back, coughs a little, runs a hand across her mouth. "He's the only one I told. And I figured that worked because... he knows. What it's like, I mean. And Doc Cottle knows, but he's Simon's boss, and Simon didn't tell him, and there was startin' to be problems so I put my hand in where I shouldn't've but Cottle laid off him some. So I'm not sorry about it. And now that most everybody's goin' down here, and Doc wants to come too, Simon's takin' over the med bay, and that's good enough for him."

Cally's not sure what makes her ask it. "And you're not?"

She's not expecting Kaylee's smile to brighten.

"The sex is good enough. And he says he loves me. And that's all I ever wanted. No call to make anything official."

Her hand steals to her belly. "No kids?"

There's compassion in the way Kaylee looks at her, and Cally doesn't like it. "He hates what Cain did to us," Kaylee reminds her. "Hard to make yourself want to give 'em a chance to take away somebody else you love. And I got to imagine it's worse when it's somebody you helped make."

"But what about you?"

Kaylee shrugs loosely one more time, hair falling over her shoulders, shining bronzed in the sunlight. "I'm not sayin' I agree with him. But I kind of see his point. And I'll admit I want better than being the only option he sees." She stands. "I'm fillin' up. You want anything?"

Kaylee, Cally thinks, is infuriating: the perfect little sister, the kind of lover men want (no commitment, no kids, just a roll in the rack and a faretheewell), too pretty, too sweet, too smart. Cally measures herself, and falls up short in every way except one:

_At least I'm going to keep my man. At least I'm giving something back to the human race. At least I'll always have someone to love me_.

From the bandstand she watches Kaylee's hips move as she goes back to the bar, and Cally feels superior. And benevolent.

***

Kaylee shifts Nicky in her arms so she can free up one to put around Cally.

"They tried to kill me," Cally sobs, over and over. "They tried to kill me and they were going to take my son and do things to him. _They were going to take my son_."

Kaylee feels helpless.

(The Chief is out on the deck. The Chief, Kaylee thinks, should be here.)

"Shh." Kaylee finds herself kissing the top of Cally's head. "You got Nicky. He's alive. You're alive. And you're gonna stay that way."

"Shh."

***

Kaylee comes back down to New Caprica in the company of Captain Tam one more time before the Cylons come. Kaylee to have a look at some machinery in the remnants of the refinery ship, and Simon to assist Doc Cottle with a difficult procedure.

Cally's eight and a half months along, and home in bed. Nowhere else is comfortable. Galen's out at a union meeting.

Kaylee brings Cally an apple grown in the hydroponics lab on _Galactica_. Slices it for her. Cally watches Kaylee lick the juice off her fingers, watches Kaylee look guiltily over her shoulder, hears Kaylee explain that she hoarded it for a week or so and it just looked too good, and she hopes Cally won't mind.

Cally doesn't mind. She doesn't mind when Kaylee kneels beside the bed on the oilcloth spread over the dirt floor, puts the small plate with the fresh apple slices on the bed next to Cally, puts her palms on Cally's belly like she's worshipping a machine in her way, feeling the way it all works.

"Look at you." Kaylee speaks softly, full of wonder. Cally doesn't feel wonderful -- more like a freak of nature.

Maybe a beautiful freak, though, if the way Kaylee's looking at her is anything to go by.

"You're gonna be good at this." Cally might be imagining the wistful note in Kaylee's voice. "I wish -- "

Maybe Cally isn't imagining it.

Kaylee picks up, shaking her head, "I wish I'd be here to see him."

"You still can." Cally isn't sure why her hand falls on Kaylee's shoulder, but it does, and it feels good. "There's going to be time."

"Yeah." A bright smile. "Just got to find a reason for the old man." Kaylee straightens up, stands. Cally's hand falls away.

One more time Kaylee stoops -- to kiss Cally's forehead, like a sister would do. It feels like a current, sudden, sharp; it leaves a tingle. "You take care of you, okay? And if you need anything -- "

Galen comes back thirty minutes after Kaylee's gone. The plate is empty, the scent of apple still hangs in the stale air of the tent, and Cally's eyes are red.

***

Kaylee lets the box with the light drop and goes to sit by Cally on the bed.

"Thanks," Cally says. She hasn't gotten up yet.

"Had somethin' like it when I was growin' up." Kaylee strokes Cally's hair. "Little nice for when it's time for bed. Always put me right to sleep, those stars spinnin' around." She winds a strand of Cally's hair around her finger without thinking. "When you put him to bed, he might like it."

Nicky's at day care. Cally called in, and didn't care about the look on Galen's face.

"Cally?" Kaylee's voice is soft. "Can I ask you somethin'?"

"Sure." Cally doesn't move.

"You wasn't together with the chief before he beat you. So why?"

A few months ago Cally might have gotten angry. This is Kaylee; Kaylee doesn't get angry. Not with her doctor, who's so full of anger himself; not with the old man; not with Admiral Cain.

Cally says, dull, "It made him think he loved me."

Kaylee keeps stroking her hair long enough that Cally thinks she hasn't heard, until she hears Kaylee sigh and say, "Oh, honey."

She feels the bed move as Kaylee bends forward, and feels Kaylee's lips touch hers.

_Sisterly_ , Cally thinks, and starts to cry. She hears Kaylee whisper, "You deserve so much better than that," and she's not sure why and she's not sure how but she's turning in the bed, turning off her side and onto her back, her arms around Kaylee's waist, pulling the other girl down with her, sliding her hands into Kaylee's hair, not troubling to be gentle. She hears Kaylee's indrawn breath, feels Kaylee's breasts move against hers, and Cally takes one in hand and squeezes.

"You think I deserve so much better -- " A bitter whisper against Kaylee's neck. " -- then show me."

"Cally -- "

When Kaylee says her name, Cally doesn't hear reproval. She hears indecision. It's a nice change from Galen, but --

_Isn't that just like it always is_. The thought is bitter, but when she moves her mouth up, tongue flickering along Kaylee's neck, under her jaw, to her lips, when she whispers, "Show me," there's nothing bitter to it at all.

Kaylee sighs against Cally's mouth, and rolls off, gets up.

Cally licks her lips. Waits.

"I'm lockin' the door," Kaylee says, and turns her back, one hand going to the catch on her trousers. "And we're gonna do this thing, and we're gonna do it right."

***

"I have a family."

"Yeah," Kaylee agrees, sitting up, pulling the sweat-dampened hair off of her neck. "And I don't. So this is a one-time thing." Which is fine by her; she doesn't want to handle that responsibility. Doesn't want Cally to be a responsibility; doesn't want her to be anything but a privilege.

Doesn't want to give up Simon.

Cally looks surprisingly hurt -- like maybe she was expecting Kaylee to put up a little more fight. But they're not little girls any more, not little sisters, and it's the end of the world, and they're stuck waiting to die, one way or another, and Kaylee guesses that would turn just about anybody into a love 'em and leave 'em type.

"We'll plan on it bein' a one-time thing," Kaylee revises. "Mostly 'cause if you're gonna cheat on your husband I got to think on whether or not I really want to be a party to it."

This is a consideration, and not just a convenient reason, but it's less of a consideration than it maybe ought to be. The Chief's got a little meaner since New Caprica, and she's Cally's friend; nobody in their right mind could help but think less of the Chief.

But Cally still looks lost.

Kaylee reaches out, touches Cally's hair, kisses her cheek. "Don't you hang on to me. We're friends, and we need some of what the other's got." She shifts on the coverlet, bringing bare legs around front. Cally touches her skin like it's silk, and Kaylee covers her hand. "But we ain't family. That's the only thing worth holdin' on to. And you got one, and I don't, and I don't know how he'd take it, findin' out his wife's been shackin' up with somebody he bosses around, much less another woman. And I never been good with secrets."

She can see Cally wilting. Not wilting -- retreating. Getting dull again.

Kaylee closes her eyes.

"I'm on shift soon." She edges out of the bed, and bends to pick up her underwear, her trousers.

Cally doesn't move.

A few minutes later, her destination well in mind, Kaylee walks down _Galactica's_ corridors, and her tags hang heavy against her breastbone, and she stops in front of the picture of the man in brown she used to call captain and asks him, under her breath, how in the seven gorram hells he knew that shipboard romance -- not her and Cally, captain, but Cally and the chief, sweet as that was when it wasn't disturbing the hell out of her -- was a bad rutting idea, and why not everybody could get it through their skulls, because it's the kind of thing that can kill a girl if she doesn't have her head on straight.

Simon, the next night in his rack, doesn't ask where her bruises came from, but kisses them instead, and holds on to her wrist when she eventually eases out of his bed, and he whispers to her in their secret language for the first time.

_Wŏ ài nĭ, xin gan_.

***

Laura Roslin leaves Cally Tyrol's funeral on the arm of Bill Adama, and tells him that she wants him to know what she likes. She's caught up in her own impending death, and this is why she does not stop to speak to the girl she remembers sharing a joke with the Chief's wife on the hangar deck.

The girl fits within the arm of Captain Tam, anyhow, and looks pale enough, and Captain Tam looks solicitous enough, that Laura doesn't stop, but instead lets Bill usher her out.

What she would have said, she thinks about for a few hours afterward: that she's sorry she begrudged them their little joke, so long ago.

Strange, the way it feels like no time at all.


End file.
